As Covid first spread and affected the daily lives of people during 2020, Viva’s seven partner networks in India responded with emergency food relief to vulnerable communities in their cities, and began to run Viva’s Phone Mentoring Programme.

In Dehradun, the capital city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand 271 families received the support of 35 mentors from 21 churches and organisations based in the city.

The greatest benefit of the programme was helping to stay connected with the community and not leaving people alone in isolation and distress during the pandemic.

Through the six themes explored across a two-month period, mentors were able to introduce ways families could improve their daily lives together. Different people in Dehradun were impacted by the phone mentoring in a variety of ways.

For Shamma, it gave her courage to have the surgery she needed, to be counselled and to improve her relationship with her daughter.

For Rajni, it inspired her to learn cooking and to help her mother around the house, whilst also balancing that with doing her important studies.

For Vimla, it brought peace, harmony and forgiveness to her family after a period of time when disturbances and arguments were common at home.

One of the mentors wrote: “Managing emotions and staying calm was very helpful for most mothers and children. Many children learnt to control their anger. Parents learnt not to lose their temper so easily and heards about ways to listen to their children.”

Depending on the impact of the second wave of Covid, which is ravaging India, our partner networks in Patna and Dehradun aim to roll out phase 2 of the phone mentoring programme in the coming months for about 1,000 people.

We hope that through our seven networks in India, up to 5,000 people will benefit from phase 2 of the mentoring during 2021.